The Simca 1100 was launched in September 1967 initially as a five-door hatchback, with a new design of transverse mounted engine. It was Simca’s first front-wheel-drive car. Front disc brakes were fitted. A three-door hatchback and a three-door estate car appeared the following year, plus a van version based upon the latter, as well as a pickup. A five-door estate arrived for 1969. The Simca 1100 Special of 1970 with its 1204cc engine could perhaps lay claim to being the first hot-hatch. The ownership history and naming of the firm is quite a complicated one. In the 1920s, the Société Anonyme Française des Automobiles Fiat, or S.A.F.A.F. distributed Fiat cars in France, and in 1932 began assembling the Fiat 508 as the Fiat-Française.
In 1934, the Société Industrielle de Mécanique et Carrosserie Automobile, or S.I.M.C.A., was formed to build Fiat cars under licence, such as the Simca 5 (Fiat 500 Topolino). Fiat retained shares in Simca until the 1970s. The first Simca that wasn’t a Fiat design was the Aronde of 1951. In 1954, with the success of
